Concern for natural resources and environment has, in recent years, stimulated numerous projects to recycle used products for other beneficial uses. The projects have resulted, for example, in the recycling of used automobile tires into a number of specialty rubber products.
One such product has been the reclaiming of particle-size rubber for use as a bedding material for animals, such as horses. The rubber particles are referred to as crumb rubber and each is approximately 3/8 to 1/4 inch in size and, illustratively, rectangular in shape. Typical bedding applications involve a 4 to 5 inch bed of the crumb rubber on the stable floor. Prototype uses of the rubber particles as a bedding material have revealed that it has a beneficial therapeutic effect on limbs of animals, such as horses.
Despite the benefits and prospective increased demand for the recycled tire rubber as a bedding material, it has heretofore been a persistent problem to reuse it after it has been soiled by animal excretions. Heretofore, the soiled rubber has presented a health hazard because it could not readily be efficiently and economically sanitized and reused. Resultingly, it had to be discarded.
A need has therefore existed for a procedure and equipment for efficiently and economically sanitizing rubber particles after they had been soiled by animal excretions.